


Voices of Steel

by t0talcha0s



Category: BioShock, BioShock 2
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Existentialism, Fighting, Gen, Not too heavy though, Other, Rapture (Bioshock), Violence, poetically written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:02:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5324927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t0talcha0s/pseuds/t0talcha0s
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He woke up with a throbbing headache, little recollection of the past, and nothing but the woman on his radio to guide him through the turmoil of the once grand city. <em> She </em> was, however unwelcome, a reminder of past, of present, and an omen of the future. Delta's not sure if he should welcome her like family or slaughter her like a mechanism of change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voices of Steel

**Author's Note:**

> Let's go in the garden  
> You'll find something waiting  
> Right there where you left it  
> Lying upside down  
> When you finally find it  
> You'll see how it's faded  
> The underside is lighter  
> When you turn it around  
> Everything stays  
> Right where you left it  
> Everything stays  
> But it still changes  
> Ever so slightly  
> Daily and nightly  
> In little ways  
> But everything stays  
> -Everything Stays, Rebecca Sugar

It was cold and it was heavy. He thought he'd have trouble lifting it yet the solid metal moved as if it were just his skin, but it was too cold. It felt like lifting his head when woken too early in the morning, and perhaps it was morning, there was no sunlight through the great glass windows too tell, only shimmering, ever-dark ocean. 

He had a headache. 

Everything seemed familiar, simply more ragged and decrepit, and everything in Rapture was old. As if the pure badness of the situations and political turmoil accelerated aging, or like the pure meanness of the place made it wrinkle like the foreheads of the men who fought for it. 

Drained, winking memories.

Fontaine is dead, Ryan too, who runs the place. 

Fallen, fallen is Babylon, Rapture is crumbling. 

His eyes roam the city from beneath a glass shell. This city is dying, tearing apart at the seams of a fabric stained with the blood of its citizens. 

He stands, it takes more effort then it should, his steps are lumbering when he walks. He doesn't know where he's going. Everything is familiar, everything stayed the same. Aimlessly he wanders, his memories flicker in and out of his mind's eye, static picture when he tries to recall, mild retrograde amnesia it would seem. Shit. Pictures flutter at the back of his mind, a girl, a city, a woman, a gun. 

"She is not your daughter." 

His headache pounds against his skull, the real one not the metal exoskeleton. The silence breaks.

"Herr Delta." Delta is it then, he's less sure about the formality, herr, sir, why does he understand. 

He listens to her words, she knows him better then he does, he's not sure he trusts her. He's not sure he has a choice. 

He does as he's told (oh wouldn't you kindly, he remembers such graffiti, but not for him, this tin soldier thinks for himself (or so he thinks (but isn't that how it always goes))). He follows her directions and as waves as violent as the ocean outside provoke him he finds he doesn't much mind killing, it's almost instinct, as if he had something to protect. 

The woman, Tenenbaum, why does he know her? He'll stick to calling her woman. A name in the woman's words catches him like a fishhook. A girl, a lamb. Eleanor Lamb to be exact (oh cruel irony). These halls smell like salt, mold, ice, blood, and something static and acrid that reaches even through Delta's thick mask. 

A screech of metal. Metal that's not Delta's own. His right arm raises, a drill, sturdy, messy, a weapon with no compassion, perhaps the rivet gun would be kinder. A flash of a basket on the back of a beast, a pretty little birdcage for foolish little birds, a helmet that reminds Delta of his same metal skull, the beast is too fast. He feels stunned, wrong, that creature should not exist. (oh big sister have you surpassed your father). He doesn't dare apply the same reasoning to himself when he catches glimpses of his own warped metal in pools of water, he knows he could screech the same. He follows her, as monsters are want to do to little girls.

We will be reborn in the cold womb of the ocean. 

Resurrection isn't all it's cracked up to be, he wonders if they've realized that. The ocean is no womb, Rapture can attest, the best and brightest driven to the bottom of the ocean to rot. Festering wounds of ADAM and claustrophobia. The ocean is a cage, solitary confinement where people are sent to die. (So then why isn't he dead, those vita-chambers are a monstrosity of nature. (A parasite says, 'Watch out, or you might tread on the toes of God... '(Oh and isn't he a parasite, a leech on the wing of a butterfly, he'll drag them all to hell if he remains))). 

His footsteps are ominous even to his own ears, hard to listen for others when your own are so loud. The shadows he casts on the walls are large and imposing, not that that keeps lesser enemies from attacking him. None last too long. 

A screech of metal. Delta knows it now, he won't be caught off guard. The beast screeches, screams, a dark intonation that causes something to drip down Delta's spine (perhaps she's Lamb's little songbird). He walks into the room, three grand windows warp the view of the twisting waves outside, the creature sits on the top of the leftmost window. There's a moment of eerie silence, like an echo of some connected past, some code of understanding between kin. But Delta can find no kinship with this creature, wistful and forlorn in its perch, their familiarity is not a sign of relation (he is not her family, this much he knows). A cool tension mounts, mutual wariness and self-preservation, both know neither would fully survive a brawl.

A screech of metal on glass. Scratch, puncture, rapid and thrice, the creature vanishes from his view. The cracks widen, the air cools, a cord held taunt which finally, with little bravado and formality, snaps. The ocean heaves itself inside as if it were reclaiming the space it was meant to occupy, returning things to how they should be. Delta holds his breath, a reflex, but no crushing force against his lungs, he remains dry. His eyes wander in their limited view, turning within the waves, an immovable (or undying is it) object met by an unstoppable force. He steps foreword, limbs a struggle and too easy to move beneath the twisting water. 

He hears the woman on his radio telling him where to go, assuring him the water can't touch this fragile heart through his metal exterior. He extends his hand, the one still dexterous and unhindered by his drill. When he clenches his fist he hears a suck, feels his veins fill with crackling, addicting lifeblood alighting the ADAM within him. (Oh EVE thou art as tempting as any fruit.) He sighs and he knows he sounds like every other big daddy out there, deep and moaning, pitiful and miserable like they want nothing more but to give up and die already. (Oh but you've met death once already haven't you Delta?) He turns his hand in front of his eye, examines it. He wonders if his hand is even his own anymore, if his nerves were hacked and wired into this thick glove, if this movement, the twitching of each individual finger, even relates to the fingers he once had. 

He slams the breaks on that train of thought and walks heavily through the water. Once he's on dry land (dry land beneath the ocean, a hopeful thought) he doesn't put much thought to his actions, doing what he's told feels instinctual especially with this woman giving the commands. Despite his optimum functionality, in self-preservation that is, he feels almost meaningless and he doesn't know why. (A tin can lacking content). He keeps his ears (does he have ears anymore) alert, hoping to pick up any familiar screeching or smooth movements. He catches a glimpse of her outside a window, can't get to her, he moves onward. 

He moves onward until he can get to her, through masses of struggles, killing his fellow big daddies, those damnable splicers, Lamb's messages, and those of his daughter. The woman on his radio is replaced by a man, Augustus Sinclair. He seems like a prick. 

Finally, finally he finds her. 

It seems like a lifetime since he'd last seen her, seems even longer since she sent him tumbling through the waves which made the citizens of Rapture appreciate unsalted water so much more. 

Scorched earth and brimstone couldn't keep him from her now. 

She seems to have a similar agenda. 

A screech of metal in tandem to Delta's own, harmonious even, but the beauty of such a thought is not conveyed through their discordant meeting of singing metal. Clash-retreat-repeat a simple algorithm to guide their movements. It seems more like a conversation then a battle and the message is conveyed clear: both have far too much to lose. (Sister your father is sorry (sister you know not what you fight for (oh but father do you?))). The fighting continues all the same. 

They take a moment to pause, stare at each other with lifeless gazes. Delta sees dents on her body and knows his metal contains the same, his view shifts to a pink bow fallen upon the damp floor of this accursed city. He knows the bow was placed on her back by the very same creature he would usually carry on his (perhaps they are fighting for the same thing (does it matter?)). Taking advantage of his distracted state she lunges at him. He feels his back slam into a pillar, probably causing portions of it to crumble and lose all structural integrity. His head swims a bit at the impact and he aims a rivet at her face as a distraction so he can take the time to get up, it grazes her helmet, she's unbelievably fast. Perhaps he ought to flee, he inwardly scoffs at the thought. Delta, once he's back on his feet, roars, shows himself to be a fearsome adversary, clenches his fist to swarm his veins with EVE, and shocks her. It hurts him to see her static and twitching like a live wire in front of him but he does what he must so she'll stop moving. He charges, dashes his drill right into her stomach (and what horror once sat in that stomach sister? Are you immortal still? Where is that beloved parasite now?). The sound of the turning drill against metal is horrific, and the sight grisly as her protection rips and shreds apart as if it were nothing but fabric. She tries to jump away, the hole in her armor revealing sickening white skin stained red so red, almost glowing red, familiarly red. 

She screeches, anger, hurt, pure rage, and she's advancing at him again. His eyes catch again on the red of her stomach as he dodges. (How much of that stuff has she ingested in her time? Is she even human under all that metal? (Are you?)). He can't help but feel apprehension at slaying her like she's any common adversary, but he must, for a higher cause (for Rapture (for Eleanor)). He sinks a rivet into the side of her skull and presses his drill, more of a smack or stab then an attack with any brutal spin this time, into the godforsaken red of her stomach. 

A screech of metal against the floor, the sound of splintering and bending metal as she lands on the basket gracing her back. (Oh sister you can't surpass your father (your protector (your monster))). 

Silence falls over the scene. 

Delta breathes,

Heaves, 

Moans of loss much like any other big daddy upon his deathbed. But Delta's faced death once before.

Resurrection can make you question the merits of death. 

Both knew they would never fully survive a brawl. 

Delta's lumbering steps move on. (For Rapture (for Eleanor (does it matter?)))

**Author's Note:**

> Well looks like my bioshock obsession has taken ultimate fruition in a piece it doesn't even feel like I wrote. 
> 
> If you want to see me rant about my love of bioshock on tumblr you can find me at Barefootcosplayer.


End file.
